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Program Admission Requirements

Option 1. Students with a minimum undergraduate GPA of 2.75 and composite score of 280 or higher on the verbal and quantitative sections of the GRE General Test will be accepted. The official score must be filed with the Graduate Office prior to admission but no later than the end of the first trimester of enrollment. If the score is not submitted by the end of the first academic trimester, the student cannot re-enroll until the score is submitted. Students who do not meet the cutoff score of 280 may be accepted on the condition that they maintain a grade point average of at least 3.00 for the first nine graduate hours in mathematics.

Option 2. Undergraduate mathematics majors within fewer than 30 hours of completing their B.S. in mathematics, with GPA of 2.8 overall and 3.2 in mathematics may apply for a “fast track” admission to the program. Students in this option can complete their B.S. and M.S. in Mathematics in 5 years.

Comprehensive Examination

The content of the comprehensive examination will be equally divided between those courses offered in the required courses and the list of electives. The degree candidate must pass both portions of the examination.

Course Descriptions

17-602 Introduction to Higher Mathematics (3 credit hours)(Summer, first year)—a survey of topics designed to review concepts that include series, differentiation, integration, functions of several variables, maximum and minimum problems, logic, induction, probability, and matrices.

17-652 Analytic Geometry (4 credit hours)(Fall, first year)—a content course where students will deepen their knowledge and appreciation of geometry.Topics may include transformation geometry, taxicab geometry, parametric equations, polar coordinates, conic sections, and famous theorems in geometry.

17-643 Mathematical Analysis and Applications (4 credit hours)( Spring first year)—topics include sequence and series, continuity, differentiability, integration of functions of one real variable and functions of one complex variable. Applications to engineering and modeling problems will be presented.

17-617Combinatorics(4 credit hours)(Summer, second year)—an introduction to sets and their properties, functions, finite and infinite sets, and fundamental techniques in enumeration, discrete structures, and algorithms and optimization.

17-624 Research Project (1 credit hour)(Fall, second year)—a supervised graduate-level research project required of all graduate students in the depart­ment. Prerequisite: MATH 17-622 or consent of instructor.

17- 639 Data Analysis (4 credit hours)(Spring, second year)—acourse is designed to explain what data mining is all about and show how to use data mining techniques effectively in practice. It will be a practical, hands-on introduction to the statistical methods based on case-studies. It provides an introduction and encouragement for more advanced work on real big data. Although the mathematics behind the methodologies used will be explained, the focus will be on the practical issues of getting results out of data mining. Some knowledge of statistical modeling, especially regression techniques will be useful.

Pedagogical Electives (optional)

17-681 Curriculum Construction in Mathematics (3 hours)—asurvey of curriculum proposals and influence of learning theory on curriculum. Analysis of current textbook series for elementary and secondary mathematics. Prerequisite: MATH 17-471 or 580 or 582 or consent of instructor.

17-667 Workshop on Connections and Modeling(1 credit hour)(Fall, first year)—an exploration of the connections between mathematical domains and between mathematics and other disciplines. Differentiated strategies to embed the connective process and infuse multiple representations in instruction will be examined.

17-668 Workshop in Reasoning and Sense Making (1 credit hour)(Spring, first year)—an exploration of curriculum and differentiated instructional approaches to help all students make reasoning and sense-making foundational to the content that is being taught.

17-669Workshop in Proof and Justification (1 credit hour)(Spring, second year)—an exploration of the nature and role of proof and “proving” in mathematics—an understanding of the forms of proof and the nature of argumentation and justification, and examining strategies to help all students create viable justifications.